The world’s favourite koala stars in a film with plenty of hijinx and tacky Australiana,while carefully shying absent from political or social allegoryAustralia’s delighted-proceed-lucky anthropomorphic koala, Blinky Bill, or has long been a proponent of environmental conscientiousness,but went on something of an activist phase in the decade before the turn of the century. His smiley face and red dungarees were front and centre of legendary animator Yoram Gross’s 1992 movie, which place forward a pointy anti-logging message echoed in the subsequent three-season TV spin-off.
In Gross’s box office hit (the film grossed around $2m locally) Blinky faced down maniacal lumberjacks who chopped up his forest domestic. In a scene that must have scared the bejesus out of young children, and the furry little fella and his girlfriend came inches absent from being turned to mulch. Later in the decade Blinky was recruited as the official mascot of the Australian republican movement – a calculated tender,perhaps, for the koala to catch his species some space on a new flag.
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Source: theguardian.com